


i'm coming back from the dead and i'll take you home with me

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Feelings Realization, Fix-It, Gratuitous Smut, M/M, Repression, Scene Rewrite, i watched Bride of Reainmator and had some Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21743305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: this hole you put me in wasn't deep enough / and i'm climbing out, right now / you're running out of places to hide from me—"It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Fucking Deathwish" by My Chemical Romance
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Comments: 2
Kudos: 109





	i'm coming back from the dead and i'll take you home with me

**Author's Note:**

> an MCR song and a sequel to a cheesy 80s movie is actually something that can be so personal,,

Dan blinked, coughed, and tried to orient himself. His ears were ringing and dust from the collapsing mausoleum was obscuring his vision. Francesca was lying motionless nearby, half buried in rubble. Herbert… Dan couldn’t see Herbert, or any of his macabre creations. 

Water dripped down onto Dan’s forehead, and he winced sharply at the sensation, unexpected and unwelcome amidst every other sensory input his shocked mind was still trying to process. The ceiling. The dirt above him was dripping water down from the cemetery. Dan squinted upward, trying to gauge how far it was to the surface and if he could manage to pull himself and the others up.

Dan rolled over, onto his hands and knees, and made his way towards Francesca. He shook her shoulder. She didn’t stir. Dan grasped for a pulse and found he was too numb to care when he found none. What did it matter, really, one more person he’d lost. One more person Doctor Daniel Cain had failed to save. He stood up, turning his gaze on the dirt above him once again, stretching a hand out to try and reach where water was still coming down in a steady drip from above. Then he stumbled, lost his footing on the shifting rubble, and staggered against the damp earth of the wall. 

He heard a weak moan. 

“Francesca?” Dan turned back to look at her but she was as still and silent as she’d been a moment before. Dan sank back down, cursing the momentary spark of hope that had flared in him at the sound. 

It came again. 

The remnants of the mausoleum were dark, dank, full of horrors of Herbert’s creation, and Dan’s growing fear was beginning to fight against his exhausted apathy. Something was still alive. Something was moving. Dan felt something near him shift, and he scrambled around looking for the source, only for that spark of hope to burst into flame, bright and almost painful in his chest when he spotted Herbert’s hand rising from the rubble to his left. 

“Herbert!” Dan gasped as he spun around. He saw Herbert’s hand twitch and grasped it, feeling the small cold fingers, the delicate circle of his wrist as he gave an almighty wrench. His other hand was scrambling wildly to knock things away, to unbury Herbert as he pulled him up, up, until he was all but lifting him. 

Herbert was barely conscious, his breath coming in rapid little pants, his glasses cracked and blood running down his forehead. When Dan shook him his head lolled grotesquely on his shoulders before he blinked, slow and unfocused, and opened his mouth.

“Daniel?” Herbert’s voice was so weak, high and thready and like nothing Dan had ever heard from him before. Almost childlike in his disorientation, and Dan gathered him to his chest, clutching him, drawing strength and reassurance from feeling him warm and alive. 

“Come on.” Dan said as he looked around the room once more, searching for the spot where the rubble was highest and they could climb the dirt walls to the world outside.

It took almost all of Dan’s remaining strength to do it, but some time later, he broke the surface. He climbed out of the grave and reached down a hand to pull Herbert up behind him. 

Together they staggered away to more stable ground, Dan supporting Herbert’s weight as they went. A moment later Dan collapsed again, his back braced against an old tombstone. He half expected Herbert to pull him up, urge him along like he had so many times before when Dan had faltered, but he didn’t. He went down with Dan, leaning against him, shivering. 

It was still raining, although much lighter than it had been. The grass all around them was wet and droplets of water were collecting on Herbert’s glasses. Dan reached over to where Herbert's forehead was resting against his shoulder, intending to remove them so he could inspect the wound on his head, and instead found himself brushing the dark hair back from his temple. He felt rather than heard Herbert take a sharp breath. 

“Did I hurt you?” Dan murmured, his hand settling against Herbert’s cheek. Herbert gave the tiniest shake of the head. 

“What happened to Francesca?” Herbert asked in a hollow tone. 

Dan blinked. “She’s dead.” 

Herbert’s eyes, which had been pressed tightly closed since they’d staggered away from the pit sinking into the mausoleum, opened to peer at Dan. “Oh.” He blinked slowly, and Dan realized, not for the first time, how long his eyelashes were, the familiar shifting grey-green-hazel of his eyes. How long had it been since he’d memorized the color of Herbert’s eyes? How long had he been looking? “I’d have thought you’d have saved her.” 

“We’re all that’s left.” Dan said, stroking a hand through Herbert’s hair. Herbert let out a shaky sigh, his breath hitching as his eyelids fluttered, and Dan drew him closer. Herbert offered no resistance as Dan pulled him more firmly into his arms, settled him more securely against him. He let out a broken sound when Dan pressed a kiss to his temple, tasted the blood not yet washed away by the rain. 

“Daniel,” Herbert said, sounding choked, and Dan shushed him. “Don’t do this to me.” Dan couldn’t be sure, amidst the rain still falling, but he thought Herbert might be crying.

“Tell me to stop and I will.” Dan said as he took Herbert’s glasses off, but Herbert was silent. He looked at Dan with his lips slightly parted, quick breaths coming in and out of him, shuddering through his body, and Dan watched Herbert watch him as he tucked the glasses into the front pocket of Herbert’s ruined shirt, stroked a hand down his cheek and skated his thumb along Herbert's bottom lip. 

The sound Herbert made when Dan leaned in to kiss him, something starved and empty, made Dan lift him up, pull him even closer, longing to have him safe and warm and flush against him. He wanted Herbert, he realized as he deepened the kiss. He’d wanted Herbert for a while. Maybe for as long as they’d known each other. Herbert’s hands fisting in the loose material of Dan’s shirt made Dan wonder if Herbert had wanted him for all that time, as well. Whether he’d been the way he was about Dan’s girlfriends because he’d been jealous. 

Herbert was rocking against him, in his lap where Dan had placed him, and Dan slid a hand down between his shoulderblades to the small of his back. He could feel Herbert, half hard, against his stomach, and he opened his mouth to speak. 

“When you asked me to stay...” Dan said, and it was not at all what he’d been intending to say but it felt right, in the cemetery in the rain, with Herbert close to getting himself off against Dan’s stomach and Dan’s own cock starting to show interest where Herbert's body was rubbing over it, “When you asked me to stay, it wasn’t about the work.” 

“No.” Herbert said, his voice cracking. “It wasn’t.” 

“Why didn’t you—” 

“I can’t, Dan, I can’t.” Herbert looked at him, pleaded with him, his eyes wide and color starting to rise in his cheeks. Dan kissed him again, moved their bodies together, feeling Herbert shudder again before he leaned down and ghosted his lips over Dan's neck, the junction of his shoulder. Dan was cold, and wet, and for the second time in a year his life was over, but Herbert was warm and solid and alive against him, despite everything, and it felt right. A fitting conclusion to all they’d been through together. 

Dan felt Herbert come, felt him tense up and then melt, silently, against him, and Dan came a moment later with a shock of surprise, biting his lip to prevent the embarrassing sound he wanted to make and letting his head fall back against the tombstone they were leaning against. The rain was finally letting up and the stars were beginning to come out from behind the clouds above them. Herbert rested his forehead on Dan’s shoulder, silent and unmoving. He could have almost been dead. “Where are we going to go?” Dan said, and Herbert let out a soundless laugh. 

“Anywhere you want,” he said. Dan heard the unspoken plea behind it, the _just don’t leave me_ that accompanied, in retrospect, so much of what Herbert said and did when it came to Dan. 

_Never,_ Dan thought, stroking a hand up the soaked and bloody shirt covering Herbert’s back, imagining the soft skin underneath. Imagining Herbert spread out below him, trembling and wanting and _his_. He’d made a choice a long time ago, and it had taken the destruction of the idea of bringing Meg back to realize it. To realize Herbert was important to him, not for what he represented or for what he knew or for what he thought they could contribute to science, but just because he _was_. Just Herbert. 

“Right now I sort of want to go inside and shower. And then pack a bag and get the hell out of here before somebody comes looking for that cop we killed.” 

“That seems prudent.” Herbert said, but he made no move to dislodge himself from Dan’s arms, and Dan didn’t let go. Not yet. 


End file.
